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Rainy season has begun!

Hello again!

I've been on a few month hiatus from posting on my blog; sorry y'all! There's just been too much happening and not enough electricity to keep my laptop charged ;)

Where to begin? I visited South Africa with two of my best friends in November, and we had a blast! Some of the things we did: explored Cape Town, took a 16 hour bus, cage dived with sharks, a wine tour, bungee jumped, rode ostriches, saw penguins at Boulder Beach, took surfing lessons, I got a tattoo, drove along the garden route, ate sushi and other great seafood, played frisbee on the beach, stayed in cool hostels, drove the garden route, went paragliding, walked a cheetah, enjoyed LOTS of south african wine, hiked beautiful mountains at sunset, and overall just experienced so many adventures in 9 days. I began typing up a more specific blog post about the things that we did, but I never finished it of course...maybe someday. After the trip, Abby came back to Malawi and spent 3 weeks here! We adventured around here a decent amount as well including visiting Liwonde National Park and seeing plenty of African animals (elephants, hippos, nyala, warthogs, etc), soaking up the culture in my village (eating nsima with my neighbors and introducing "abigailo" to everyone), having a great peace corps style Thanksgiving, hiking up Mulanje Mountain to Sapitwa (the hiking point in Malawi), seeing Lilongwe and Blantyre, hitching, and so much catching up with each other along the way. It was so wonderful to have a close friend from home here to share my experiences with and someone who will understand my life here when I want to talk about my peace corps experience in the future.



December was also an exciting month because I was accepted for a position as a regional SOLID coordinator for Peace Corps Malawi. SOLID (Sustainable Opportunities for Leaders in Internal Development) is a program that was started by a fantastic volunteer who is finishing up her service in April this year. The goal of the program is to increase sustainable development by Peace Corps volunteers by training a group of motivated individuals in the village to basically do the same job as the PCV. So basically, it's teaching a group of people in your village skills such as community assessment, sustainable development, project design and management, and professionalism.

I also had the opportunity to help do a few sessions for a 2-day malaria training for southern region volunteers the week before Christmas in Blantyre. It was really exciting to see so many more volunteers trained in malaria work, and I'm really confident that malaria-prevention programs are going to take off in the next few months. A lot of volunteers are wanting to do malaria murals at schools and health centers which is right up my alley, so I'm hoping we can get a group together for those!

My first Christmas away from home was definitely just as hard as I'd expected, but thankfully I made a whole bunch of friends (people who work/manage the tea estates all around the district) around Mulanje the week beforehand and Andy and I were invited to a Christmas get-together full of good people, good food, and good wine. That combined with their warm hospitality made for a much easier time. At our christmas dinner table, we had 7 different nationalities represented which was pretty neat. Just goes to show that wandering souls stick together through holidays too! Everyone was so friendly--encouraging us to eat more food, filling our glasses with wine, and asking loads of questions about our lives and what we do in the villages. We were even given a place to sleep for two nights. After being in the village for a bit, even just one night with a toilet, a warm shower, a fan, and electricity is nice, but the house we were welcoming into was absolutely beautiful with fantastic views of the mountain and tea estates, a giant garden, a pool, a tv, and five dogs (the last part making me feel very at home!) The morning after, Andy and I even got to go on an informal tour of the tea factory which was really fantastic because it helped me understand the process of tea which, being surrounded by it, I felt like I was a little late to the game. We also went to a Boxing Day swimming-in-a-river event (with christmas leftovers!) that afternoon which was an incredible time as well.

Over New Years, I finally visited northern Malawi and stayed at Nkhata Bay for a few days. It was an absolutely incredible experience--staying in a lake-side chalet, swimming/snorkeling/paddleboarding/canoeing in the sparkling, turquoise water, sailing on a booze cruise with some friends, dancing NYE night away, and getting to visit with a lot of volunteers, including some from PC Zambia. It's funny how we all come from the same initial country and are put into similar situations with Peace Corps, yet how tight of a bond you create with volunteers from your own country! What's ironic though, is that PC Zambia volunteers are doing the same things as us, just next door, so it was really cool to meet them. Anyway, it was a relaxing trip besides some bumps and terrors with transport (but what else is new?), and I will definitely have to do some more exploring up north before I leave Malawi!

Things at site are rapidly picking up with lots of projects seeming to be going on. I'll just list them for time's sake: 1. SOLID training 2. cooking demonstrations/nutrition program 3. two separate malaria programs with lots more on the way (world malara month is in April!) 4. grassroot soccer SKILLZ girl soon to start at the secondary school and 5. health and environment club also at the secondary school wanting to do some activities around the community. There are too many things I am passionate about doing at site and seemingly not enough time for them all. I can't believe I only have 16 months left in Malawi--when thinking about all the interventions I still want to do/ start up in my village, the traveling in and around this country, and the cultural experiences I wish to soak up and enjoy, it doesn't seem like much time at all!

Around my house, things are progressing just fine. The taps are finally back on in my village after about a four-five month hiatus, and it's so so nice to not have to worry about getting water anymore. Still no electricity, but of course it's not functioning in my entire village. The hydrodam on the river coming off the mountain is waiting on a license so they can begin selling units and power. I'm just hoping it turns on soon because, with rainy season and just a solar panel to charge my phone, it's a bit of a struggle to keep anything alive! Speaking of, rainy season has hit hard with nothing but rain for the past week it feels like. I've barely been able to get out and go running. The heavy rains literally flood my yard and create giant rivers down the footpaths in my village. Thankfully, since the village is built into a decently steep hillside, the water just runs off and down toward the Lichenya river which is flowing pretty well these days. Some mornings, after heavy rains, I can even hear the roar of the river from just outside of my house. Even though I'm sure I will tire of the rain, right now I'm really enjoying it because it forces me to stop and sit back more and just appreciate the world around me. Rain tends to slow down progress on a lot of projects in the village I've heard, so we'll see how the next few months go with attendance at programs/events. It's interesting because the rain will come for an hour or two then stop for a bit then start again and just go like that back and forth all day. So you never really know what to expect. I've learned to just take my umbrella with me everywhere because it seems it can go from perfectly blue skies and warm to a heavy downpour in about 20 minutes. At my house, I'm also trying to do some gardening in my yard, so in between the spouts of rain, I've been working on digging garden beds and getting things in the ground. I'm really excited (and a little nervous as I'm a gardening virgin) for what will pop out and flourish in this climate and what I can experiment with in the kitchen!

Alright, enough for now. I'll update when there's time (and electricity to charge my laptop)!

xo

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